Linux desktops not taking off: IDC 16832

Actually, this is an interesting number. First of all it focuses on the most unlikely Linux candidates - SMBs. These are typically businesses with fewer than 100 employees, often they have only one IT person, or no full-time IT support staff, and what little computer knowledge is available has an average 15 years per person of experience with Windows and an average of less than 1 month per person of Linux. These businesses are too small to have any UNIX servers, and have little or no UNIX or Linux experience. In fact, most of their servers, such as web hosting are provided by outside hosting companies, who often DO have the Linux-Unix expertise and maintain the servers invisably.

This is a very carefully targeted market segment who is least likely to adopt Windows do to the cost of supporting a mixed Linux and Windows environment where it isn't practical to convert all systems to Linux.

What makes this remarkable is that 1.1 percent of these SMBs were willing to take the plunge. Keep in mind also, that CIOs originally estimated that only 2% of their IT shops were using Linux and the following year, when the CIOs did more investigation, these same CIOs found that over 17% of their shops were using Linux. Today, nearly all of the shops are using at least a few Linux systems, including servers, embedded systems such as routers, and Linux workstations used as consoles.

As for the Whitebox buttemblers, most of these machines don't come with ANY type of operating system. The vendors have no clue what Operating System will be used. The only possible clue might be hardware that's known to be Linux hostile. This hardware is very likely to be used for either pirated copies of Windows, or the Windows license may have been transferred from an older, slower, PC.

This means that the only way that the Windows license could be legally transferred from the old machine to the new one, is if Linux were to be installed on the old machine. This is a very common practice in the server world, in fact, most Linux servers start out as Windows servers. When the windows servers are upgraded to new hardware, the old machines are quickly and easily converted to Linux.

Microsoft has been a bit ambiguous about whether it's legal to transfer a Windows license from one PC to another. If it is legal, then there is no reason to buy Windows for the WhiteBox. If it isn't legal to transfer, then every PC sold under an OEM lable would be licensed forever. Microsoft actually thrives on the confusion. To protect themselves against the 1-2% of the machines which may have Windows licenses transferred to other boxes, Microsoft is able to sell duplicate licenses for 30-40% of the machines ever shipped with Windows.

I don't condone piracy. The criminal penalty for software piracy is up to 5 years in prison and-or up to $150,000 in fines. There is nothing I find more disgusting than someone who sings the praises of Windows and Microsoft, then admits that he hasn't paid for his licenses, that he has illegally copied the software from a friend. If you want to sing the praises of Microsoft, you really should put your money where your mouth is.

The other one I find a bit hypocritical and stupid is when someone claims that their MSDN subscription gives them the right to unrestricted used of all Microsoft products. The MSDN license agreement is very specific in pointing out that these products are for very restricted use.